


Buddy up and Quarantine

by LegacyWorks



Series: Cousin Trouble [3]
Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Canonical Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Eliot and Shawn are cousins, Fluff, Gen, I love the bingathon, I'm in love with these characters way too much, Just check it out, Mentions Leverage Characters, Platonic Relationships, Post-Movie: Psych: The Movie (2017), Pranks and Practical Jokes, SUCK IT, Series of Oneshots, Shawn and Gus shenanigans, Shenanigans, it's mostly harmless, kinda but they're in the same chapter, leverage - Freeform, quarantine fic, shawn and gus being dorks, takes place after the movie, you know how it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23616943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegacyWorks/pseuds/LegacyWorks
Summary: “Gus, get over here! We should quarantine together! It’ll be, like, best friend goals! C’mon, you can even do your tap dancing in the garage!”....“Gus! Hey! You wanna try? I found it in the junk yard one time when working on a case and brought it back! What do you think?” The grown man was riding a bright yellow, bejeweled, unicorn unicycle. It was adult size, though, so whatever works....“Hi Jules!” Shawn ignored Gus’ echo from the other room. “Yeah, we’re doing fine, don’t worry. All our veggies are frozen in Gus’ thing. It’s more than we could eat, honestly. I suggested hosting a party to get rid of some of it but Gus said that’s a bad idea, even though we could wear bodysuits and pretend to be astronauts. Like those hasbro suits we wore for that one case.”...Just two best friends chilling as the world ends, causing controled chaos in the comfort of their own home.
Relationships: Burton "Gus" Guster & Shawn Spencer, minor Juliet O'Hara/Shawn Spencer - Relationship
Series: Cousin Trouble [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787878
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Buddy up and Quarantine

“Gus!” Shawn screamed into his phone. Jules had just left for her mom’s house, just in case. She was getting old and didn’t want to deal with the stress of a virus alone. Thankfully she lived out in the countryside, so the only danger was going to get groceries from the stores in town.

“Gus, get over here! We should quarantine together! It’ll be, like, best friend goals! C’mon, you can even do your tap dancing in the garage!”

“I am so glad Jules was in charge of buying a house. You woulda ended up in a closed business again.”

“Hey! That laundromat was a fantastic place to live and you know it!”

“No it wasn’t, Shawn. You had rats living in the walls. They destroyed all of my shirts!”

“True, but your shirts always looked perfect hanging on the, you know, the spinney hanger system! That puts the clothes on it so you don’t have to!”

“Shawn, that was me! You never hung your shirts up, or mine for that matter! Any time I went to your place, which was a lot after I found out you had my stuff, I would put them on the rack!”

“Nah, I don’t believe you. I’m pretty sure the cute little black elf had been doing that for me! I know I saw him a few items moving around at night!”

“Call me that again Shawn, I swear.”

“C’mon, man. Are you coming over or not? And bring some stuff, I want to work on my board game skills. Shoots and ladders, maybe monopoly if you want to get destroyed.”

“What? Please, you can’t handle my monopoly skills, suck it.”

“You suck it!”

The two hung up at the same time, Gus starting to pack items to bring over and Shawn to make some of the foods left in the freezer. Jules said to stock up, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. And maybe he ran out of all of his normal food already.

A quick trip to the store later and Gus’ car was parked outside the house, waiting for the two to unload everything that Gus had bought.

“A deep freeze? Seriously?” Shawn tch’ed at his best friend. “Why would you buy this? I might not even have room for it.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve seen your house, you have a basement. And don’t say you need space down there,” Gus interrupted when Shawn started to open his mouth. “You don’t workout, don’t use the punching bag, and you moved the TV upstairs weeks ago. We can move it when Jules needs the gym area once she gets back, but until then, this freezer is going down there.”

“Ooh!” Shawn already managed to distract himself. “Froot loops! I bet there’s a prize. C’mon, Gus! What’s inside? I bet you can’t figure it out.”

“Please, I _already_ know. It’s you that won’t be able to guess it.”

“C’mon son.”

The two kept unpacking. Shawn cheered at each piece of junk food he found, and more when he found Battleship hidden at the bottom.

“Dude, why do you have plywood?” It was leaning against the back of Gus’ chair, almost the last thing out.

“What? I have to practice.”

“Practice what? Carpentry? Are you gonna learn how to carve wood?”

“No, Shawn. I need to work on my tap. You wouldn't understand, I can’t just let my skills get rusty.”

“No, I think it’s you that doesn’t understand, Gus. That’s a good thing. Don’t ever, ever do this again in front of someone.”

“Please, you loved it when I performed. It’s part of my playa moves.”

“What moves, the last girl you managed to get turned into a psycho animal abuser. And the one before that? She jumped off airplanes. For fun, Gus. Clearly your moves aren’t working the way you want them to.”

“Whatever. You gonna close that trunk yet or not?”

The two carried the rest of their things, Gus with the wooden board, into Shawn’s house. His pantry was overflowing with all of the snacks he normally has plus what Gus brought, his fridge could barely close, and it was a good thing Gus brought that freezer, though Shawn would never admit it out loud.

“Alright, that’s everything!” Gus said from his place on the couch. Shawn bounced down next to him, making Gus shift over to avoid being crushed.

“Wow, I’m tired. Hey, Gus, let’s go get a smoothie!”

“Shawn! No way, we are not leaving this house, period.”

“You can’t say period! I say period. Period.”

“Fine, I guess you can have period. It’s a dumb word anyway.”

“You take that back! Women everywhere must be offended, you maso-genist!”

“It’s misogynist, Shawn, and not I’m not!”

“I’ve heard it both ways.” He probably had, but Gus wasn’t about to concede on that. Not after so many years. Besides, it was still wrong.

“Man, whatever. Buffy’s on soon, go pop some corn, I don’t want to miss the next episode! They ended on the first half of Becoming.”

“Dude, you’ve seen that show like, a million times already. You don’t have to get that excited about it each time!”

“Hey, don’t judge me, you do that with the Mentalist! And you don’t even like that show! And it has the crucial change when Spike starts working with Buffy, you know I can’t miss that!”

Shawn tsk’ed again and went off to grab snacks.

…

“Shawn, what do you think you're doing?”

“Gus! Hey! You wanna try? I found it in the junk yard one time when working on a case and brought it back! What do you think?” The grown man was riding a bright yellow, bejeweled, unicorn unicycle. It was adult size, though, so whatever works.

“Why did you grab it? Dude, it was trashed for a reason.”

“So? I haven’t ridden one of these in years! I mean, really. There was that one week at the circus in New York, and then later in Mexico for reasons I can’t say, but that’s it! What about my skillz, Gus? I need practice!”

“Fine, but while you’re doing that, I have some tap to catch up on.”

Gus straightened his back with dignity and walked over to the board, putting on his tap shoes. As he started, Shawn let out a strange noise. Something like a whimpering cat struggling to climb a tree but too afraid to jump back down.

Gus started to hit his shoes down harder, the sound echoing around the closed garage. Shawn’s noise just grew as he struggled to make his way around the small area without crashing.

Gus couldn't help himself. He started screeching to match Shawn’s volume.

The two stopped with a huff.

“You stopped first, I win.” Gus said, panting. He wasn’t able to get enough breath to keep up with his quick movement.

“What do you mean, I won. Suck it.”

“You suck it!”

“Suck iiiit~”

They stayed in breathy silence for a while more, Shawn on the ground panting with Gus crouched down on his feet.

“Hey,” Shawn started. “Want a smoothie? I got pineapple just sitting around.”

…

“Hey Gus! I found some grass!”

“Oh, wow, Shawn. How did you manage that?” Gus says, half paying attention. He didn’t want to be distracted from his race - there was some stupid ice Mario character that was nearly beating him. It was taking all of his concentration to keep a higher score.

“Oi!” Shawn knocked the phone from his hands.

“Hey! Why would you do that? I was just about to win!”

“That doesn't matter! Come on, don’t be my dad at a comic convention! Let’s make baskets! I found a video online to weave them using grass from the backyard.”

“Shawn, you don’t have a backyard. Where did you get the grass from?”

“That doesn’t matter, I already have it! Now come on, don’t you want to learn a new skill? Who knows, we might have a job living in the wild, and have to make our own supplies to carry water. Oh! Or there’s native Americans that can’t figure out who killed their tribe leader and need us to come and solve the case, but we need to blend in and the only way to prove we’re part native is through our basket weaving skills!”

“You know that won’t happen.”

“But what if it did!”

“You know what? Fine. I’ll go along with this. Besides, no way you could beat my nimble fingers. My basket will definitely be better than yours.”

“Oh! You wanna bet? Because we can do this, no problem. My sneaky fingers vs your nimble ones.” Shawn would never tell Gus (because he was a party pooper and would get scared that something bad might happen) but when in New York years ago Shawn had met a wonderful thief who brought his skills up from difficult to catch into impossible to catch.

The training was annoying, since he had to silently grab things out of a coat pocket with bells lining the sides, but it was worth it. Now he could grab anything off Lassie, even the Chief, without anyone knowing otherwise. Not that he used it, of course. But he could.

Okay, maybe he sometimes used it. But a lot of that time was just to confuse Lassie!

And maybe take notes on a case, but only a few times.

Crime scenes were fine to take things from, though. The people were dead, they wouldn’t miss anything. Besides, he makes sure not to take anything important! Unless he needs it. But even then he returns it later!

See? He was such a good sumaritan.

The two set up a timer with handfuls of long grass in front of them, ready to start. Gus blew on his hands a couple times, the same way he did when he was cracking a lock, poised and muscles tense. Shawn put his face right next to the pile, sniffing. Observing.

“Go!” They both shout at the same time. Each had found a video to watch, observe, and replicate. But they could only watch once, and the rest was up to them.

…

“Hi Shawn, how are you and Gus handling being alone? Have you gone out to get groceries yet?”

“Hi Jules!” Shawn ignored Gus’ echo from the other room. “Yeah, we’re doing fine, don’t worry. All our veggies are frozen in Gus’ thing. It’s more than we could eat, honestly. I suggested hosting a party to get rid of some of it but Gus said that’s a bad idea, even though we could wear bodysuits and pretend to be astronauts. Like those hasbro suits we wore for that one case.”

“You mean hazmat suits?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s hasbro. Hazmat is a toy company for children. Oh! Gus is a child! Hey, Gus, once we get out of here let’s buy some Hazmat games!” Juliet stifled a laugh.

“Well, Mom is doing pretty well over here. Her garden is going strong even though it’s still cold out, and we’ve been sitting and reading most days. Honestly, this feels like a nice vacation so far, other than the paperwork and photos they send sometimes. You haven’t had any important cases yet?”

“Nah, seems people don’t want to visit a psychic when there’s a virus killing people. Don’t know why. You would think they would want closure for their relatives or predictions of the future.”

“Oh, maybe, they don’t want to catch anything themselves.”

“Nah, that can’t be it. I wonder if they’re turning away from psychics and to God! You know she doesn’t care about people! Just ask Good Omens!”

“Shawn I think you’re mixing shows again. Good Omens had the ineffable God, not the ‘I don’t care about people’ God. I heard crime was lower, so that might be why the station hasn’t called.”

“I bet they think it’s inappropriate to call in their head detective’s partner when she’s busy doing other things. And they would be right. Besides, no way I could drag Gus out of here anymore. After a week he started refusing to leave.”

“I have a weak body, Shawn!”

“So? You don’t have the heart problems, or air problems, or diabetes! You’re fine.”

“Anymore! And there’s still an increased risk! You don’t know what could be happening in my body once there’s a virus! I’m not risking it!”

“See? He’s just rude.”

“Juliet!” The call came from Jules’ side of the call and she turned around.

“Yeah mom?”

“Can you help me real quick? I can’t get the cereal since you put it on the top shelf.” Jules sighed and sent a smile to Shawn.

“I’ll talk with you in a bit. Love you. Bye Gus!”

“By Jules!” He called from the other room.

“Love you too, babe. I’ll tell you all about Gus’ failure of a bowl later and show you my gorgeous one. Have fun with your mom.” They both hung up after blowing a kiss through the phone.

…

“Hands. Wash.”

“I’m not doing that again.”

“You’re supposed to wash them all the time, Gus! At least 40 times a day or something. You’re only at 4, wash your hands again.”

“It’s 20 times, and it’s only 9am. Why are you even awake yet? And how do you know how many times I’ve washed my hands? That’s just weird.”

“Uh, no, I’m pretty sure the nice man on the TV said 40 and you’re wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!” He started stomping around the kitchen like a lunatic, looking at the floor as he kept saying ‘wrong’. Gus sighed and washed his hands. Anything to make Shawn shut up.

There was silence for a few minutes as Gus pulled out his switch.

“Gus! Wash your hands!”

“Why this time? Really. I just did.”

“But you _touched_ something! What if you had corona before you washed your hands and you touched the switch, and now it’s back on your hands! You gotta wash them, what if you die! I can’t have a dead best friend, Jules won’t believe I’m talking to a ghost the next time I try to chat with you! She’ll think I’m crazy!”

“That’s because you are. And she knows you aren’t psychic, in case you forgot?”

“Oh. Yeah. Either way! Wash them!”

“No, Shawn. You wash yours. I haven’t even seen you do it since I started living here, and that’s a problem.”

“Please, I wash them all the time! You just never notice because you hate me.”

“Just wash your damn hands, Shawn.”

Gus’ game loaded and he started working on his house and talking with some of the characters in Animal Crossing. A few minutes passed of relative nothing. Shawn was messing with his playdough (no idea where that came from, Gus hadn’t brought any). He just managed to make a pancake, fingers and nails covered in the purple dye, before saying “Gus, hands.”

“Shawn!”

…

“Hey, Gus! Get over here! Dad wanted to try out that Zoom thing, so the whole family is on! Even Eli!”

“Wait, you guys managed to find Eliot for this? Wow.” Gus sauntered into the room and saw that, indeed, Shawn’s cousin was on the call along with his uncle, mom, and a different cousin plus her children.

“Hey, Gus,” Henry said with a wave.

“Hey Mr. Spencer, hi Eliot. Uncle Jack, Miss Spencer.”

“Uncle Jack, what have you been up to? Managed to stay in one place so far?”

“Ah, you know me, Shawnie-Boy. I still have to travel, just like always. But I rented a Tiny House so I can just drive around and see places without staying around people. Can’t tell you where I’m at, of course. Don’t want anyone finding me, but I am right as rain and flowing along the land like a river.” Shawn couldn’t help his grin. Sure, Uncle Jack abandoned him to the wolves, but he was just so Cool!

“Just be careful, Jack,” Henry said. “Even if you aren’t coming into contact with many people, make sure you got a mask and keep your distance. Do you have extra fuel just in case you run out? How is the house powered, solar panels?”

“Calm down, Henry! I got this, I don’t need your momming to get around, I’m an adult already.”

“Sure you are, I bet you don’t even have a backup plan.” Maddie interrupted before anything got too heated.

“Now come on you two, this is the first time you’ve talked in a while. Why don’t we hear about Kylie? How are your kids, honey?” Shawn tuned out for a minute. Sure, Charlie and Tyler were cute and he loved kids, but there was something far more interesting happening in Eliot’s feed.

After quickly grabbing for his phone he sent a quick message to his favorite cousin.

Me

Hey dude, who’s behind you

Eli-Belly

Oh, that’s just Parker. Ignore her.

Me

Oh! Parker! Say hi for me! Why does she look weird

Also I need to chat with her later. Did her number change?

Eli-Belly

We’re working rn, she’s an eccentric musician

and yeah, I’ll send it in a sec

Me

Ah! Makes sense

Whats ur job now

Eli-Belly

You know I can’t tell you 

Me

And you knwo I’ll figure it out

Eli-Belly

Ugh. do what you want. Still not telling you

Shawn grinned, momentarily forgetting he was on a video call. Eli’s jobs were way more interesting than understanding how the kids still have ‘daycare’ and school even when they aren’t allowed to leave the house.

Really, who makes a kid try and sit still for 3 hours when they’re at home? There has to be something about that in the constitution making it illegal. Or that document on Children’s Rights he had to read for that one job with the government.

Wait. Was it the government? It was some level of shady organization. Like, CIA shady but more.

Doesn’t matter, he finished that job years ago. Did take a few months to master, though. So it was fun while it lasted.

Maybe he could get in on one of Eli’s cases soon! After it was safe to leave the house, of course.

…

“I’m working on my macabray elephant. It’s art. I bet the museum will want it when I’m dead, make sure to keep it around for the next couple years. You know, advertise it every so often, just to keep growing interest in it. Oh! We could say it was stolen, and then it turns up years later after it was in the papers every day, and everyone will think it’s a masterpiece! Like what happened with the moaning Lisa!”

“I think you mean macaroni giraffe, Shawn. There’s no way that’s an elephant. And it’s the Mona Lisa. I’m actually surprised you remembered the history behind it.”

“Of course I do! There’s the girl I dated, some curator, that kept talking about how the Mona Lisa was nowhere near his best work but it’s what most people remember because of the drama surrounding it. I wonder where she’s at now? Huh.”

“Whatever, Shawn. You aren’t gonna get famous, you know. No one cares about your giraffe.”

Shawn leveled him with a hard stare, eyes squinting. “Watch me.”

Gus had no idea how he did it, but a few hours later the macaroni giraffe was trending on every social media outlet Gus had. Which, to be fair, was only instagram and tumbler, but still. Gus didn’t even know Shawn had accounts for them.

“Waste of food. Shawn, we’re boiling that down if we run out of pasta!”

“Don’t you dare!”

…

“Oh! Oh! Gus! Try this out!” Shawn was looking at something on his computer. “It’s multiplayer! Grab your computer and mouse!”

Gus’ computer was already opened up to the game, ready to play. Strange, but not too strange. Shawn knew his passwords to everything. Everything. Gus was tired of changing his bank code every two weeks so he just gave up after a while.

“The Curse of the Cursed Mummy? C’mon, Shawn! You know I hate curses!”

“Dude, come on! It’s a video game! There’s no actual mummy, and you know curses aren’t real! I proved that, like, forever ago! Remember the walking mummy thing? That wasn’t an actual mummy but you got scared anyway?”

“You don’t need to bring that up, Shawn. I remember, and I haven’t stepped foot in that museum since!”

“C’mon, son.”

“You know what? No. I won’t play your stupid game.”

“Chicken.”

“I’m not chicken, I’m just above simple forms of entertainment that rot your brain.”

“Said the man who plays tetris.”

“Hey! Tetris is a game of skill, you need to use your spatial reasoning to achieve increased brain efficiency and a larger, more complex cortex. Something you wouldn’t understand.”

“Man, just play this game with me.”

“Fine.” Gus sat, readying his fingers to go gamer mode. Left hand at ASDW and right hand hovering above the mouse, poised to attack.

“Go!” Shawn shouted, only to hear a yelp of pain from his best friend.

“Ha! Got you!”

“Shawn! What was that! What did you do?” So maybe, maybe Gus could be a little scary when he was mad. And maybe he managed to look scarier over the years. But Shawn stared guns straight down the barrel with psycho-killers on the other end and joked his way out of it. Probably more times than he cared to admit.

Basically Gus’ threats were nothing against experience and he knew it.

“What did you do to my mouse!”

“Easy! Check it out,” Shawn lifted up a box below Gus’ desk area. There was a battery with a ton of wires taped together at the ends that connected everything. And a strand that went up onto the desk, connected to his mouse.

“Did you use my actual mouse?”

“Don’t worry, I know how to fix it! But, uh, I electrocuted myself a few times so my fingers feel tingly. I’ll fix it later.”

“Oh don’t you dare! Shawn! I need my mouse!”

…

“What are you doing?” Gus was sitting at a sewing machine that Shawn didn’t even know he owned.

“Where did you get that? Was it Jules? Oh, wait, it was dad, wasn’t it!” When they first moved it, dad said something about “blah blah take care of things blah blah patching blah” and put it away downstairs since Shawn definitely would have left it on the counter for weeks.

“I’m making masks for when we need to go out for groceries.”

“Sounds boring. Can I help?” They sat down for a while, Shawn cutting and Gus stitching, then Shawn getting food and Gus stitching, then Shawn singing at the top of his lungs because wifi went out and there was nothing else to do and Gus stitching and Gus getting annoyed.

“Alright! Let’s play a board game or something.”

“Please, don’t be a wet blanket covering the clouds. We obviously should play basketball.”

“Oh, oh you want to play it that way. Alright, let me grab the hoop. You’ll only be catching rim.”

“Please. I only get net, you won’t even get it in.”

The time passed and Gus went to bed, only to wake up early the next morning, as he always does, and see multiple completed masks on the table.

He smirked and started breakfast. He might even make pineapple pancakes when Shawn woke up, just because.

He also stole Shawn’s mouse.


End file.
